homeless127_bw.jpg The Ten Year Homeless Plan was unveiled Wednesday at City Hall. Mayor Gavin Newsom pointed out the great contributions of chairperson Angela Alioto, clapping, in bringing together a diverse group of San Franciscans trying to find new solutions to an old problem. BRANT WARD / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT

San Francisco city officials and social service providers got their first look at the city's much-anticipated 10-year plan to end chronic homelessness Wednesday, and it was like having a holiday wish list spread before them.

In the course of 76 pages, the plan calls for 3,000 new housing units with on-site supportive services within six years, a new program saving the city $30 million in housing and medical costs through federal disability insurance, earmarking some of the supportive housing units for homeless inmates coming out of jail and a central information system to coordinate homeless services.

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There were dozens of other suggestions in "The San Francisco Plan to Abolish Chronic Homelessness," but they all boiled down to the same thing. By 2014, the city will have phased out emergency shelters and replaced them with the supportive housing, as well as 24-hour "crisis centers" that will connect the homeless with services -- and downtown streets, now cluttered daily with panhandlers and shopping carts, should be largely cleared of the most dysfunctional homeless.

"This is a dramatic shift," said Mayor Gavin Newsom, who four months ago commissioned former Supervisor Angela Alioto to assemble a volunteer, 33- member council to write the plan by June 30. "This won't all happen tomorrow .. . but it will get done."

Noting that political factions in the city are well versed in attacking each other's initiatives, Newsom called for them to continue the same spirit of cooperation that marked the discussions of the 33-member planning group, which was made up of people with widely varied viewpoints.

"Now the hard work is in front of us," the mayor said. "We all know how to draft reports. It's all about getting it done."

He said the first step would be making sure voters in November pass a $200 million bond -- which is expected to include $90 million for homeless supportive housing. Newsom also said he needed to assemble an oversight committee of about a half-dozen members, as suggested in Wednesday's report, to help his homeless advisors shepherd the plan.

Newsom pointedly noted that he hoped the Bush administration didn't go through with planned cuts of more than $1 billion to federal Section 8 rental subsidies to the poor -- a plea not lost on President Bush's homelessness czar, Philip Mangano, who winced as he stood with the mayor and Alioto for the announcement of San Francisco's homelessness plan. Mangano said he wanted the rental subsidy program reformed but shied away from actively endorsing the cuts.

Alioto said the council's researchers found that the 3,000 chronically homeless people in San Francisco used 63 percent of city resources spent on the homeless. She and Mangano said focusing on this core population would create a "tipping point" toward ending the city's transient crisis.

If the city gets this hard-core group into housing with counseling services, which costs from $12,000 to $16,000 per person a year, it will save innumerable millions of dollars that can be redirected toward creating more supportive housing, Alioto said. For instance, jailing a homeless person costs $22,000 a year -- which often goes up to $61,000 a year if that person also uses hospital emergency rooms.

"If we help these 3,000 chronically homeless, the care for the rest of the 12,000 homeless people in this city will follow," Alioto said.The 10-year plan is the latest in a series of homelessness initiatives launched by Newsom since he took office at the beginning of the year -- which, if taken altogether, have already shown a slow but clear redirection of the city away from giving emergency shelter to supplying longer-term housing.

Foremost among the initiatives was the start-up this spring of the long- fought-over Care Not Cash welfare reform, which cut welfare checks to the homeless and offered them housing or shelter instead, and the anti-panhandling law passed by voters last year, which banned begging at ATM machines and traffic dividers.

The city also created 380 new units of supportive housing, aimed mainly at serving those in the Care Not Cash program, as well as a 10-person outreach team to seek out the homeless and connect them with services.

Advocates for homeless people and city business leaders alike welcomed Newsom's general direction toward creating more housing and outreach, but the welfare and anti-panhandling moves drew criticism from advocates who said they were punishing the homeless. In particular, they have complained about preference in booking shelter beds being given to Care Not Cash welfare recipients, waiting for sometimes months for permanent housing, and a shortage of services that outreach workers could refer people to.

Newsom's homelessness advisors said they were still streamlining the shelter system. They also cited statistics showing that in the past two months, at least 86 people had been moved from welfare into permanent housing, and 369 people disappeared from the welfare rolls without a trace.

As for the homeless people themselves -- they like the idea of a 10- year plan, if it actually gets them housing.

"I've been sleeping here since January, though, and I have yet to see a real room," said Detroit Lewis, 49, as he sat in the Multi-Service Center South shelter at Fifth and Bryant streets. "I'll believe it when I see it."